Karam

Story: Dev accompanies his wife to Europe and chances upon his ex-girlfriend, who is caught in a human trafficking ring. Will he able to rescue her?

Review: The good news about Malayalam cinema is that makers are really pushing the boundaries and getting out of comfort zones. The not so good news is that it can fail pretty badly sometimes.

The latter is the case with Vineeth Sreenivasan directorial Karam, written by Noble Thomas, who also plays the lead role of Dev, in this international human trafficking story. With a weak story and script, the film doesn’t connect or flow smoothly.

Dev is a former Armyman, who has been court-martialled, because of a botched operation. He has also since then put the life of his girlfriend in critical danger. But none of this seems to have affected him and he continues his life in a happy marriage to a doctor.

In fact, there is an annoying bit later, where he casually concludes that his girlfriend never tried to get in touch with him. One, he was married by the time she recovered from her near fatal injury and two, he was the one notoriously bad at never getting in touch with her.

Anyway, when Dev’s wife has to go to a medical conference in Lenarco - which has a Russian ethos - and he and his son accompany her there, he crosses paths with his ex, who is now a victim in a sex racket. The rest of the story is about how he goes about rescuing her.

It’s a shame that while the film does not skint on production values, the script and characters are so badly written that it is difficult to watch it unfold on screen.